The life & times of the eternally evolving, erratic, eccentric expatriate (who loves the color violet)

Monthly Archives: October 2015

Turning the recording up to maximum volume, I can hear a voice, speaking softly, but deliberately: “My name… is Sara Boden. I was born in Lodz, Poland. I’m the oldest of five children… And with being the oldest, comes great responsibility.“

And so begins the nearly hour long interview that my late grandmother recorded on a simple audio cassette in 1981, her testament to the greatest atrocity in human history, the Holocaust.

Listening to the interview itself opens up some conflicted and painful feelings. Not only because the recording details the horrors that my grandmother experienced as a Jewish concentration camp survivor, but also because of the personal relationship that I had with her.

My grandmother, me, and my mother circa 1987.

As a little girl, I wondered at times why my Grandma Sala wasn’t like my other grandma. It bothered me. Why was she always complaining? Why was she so melodramatic? What was wrong? Yes, of course I loved her, and I knew with no doubt whatsoever that she loved me immensely, but nonetheless, it was difficult to relate to her, to get close to her.

“Blood is thicker than water!” she would often lament, as I secretly wanted to roll my eyes and leave the room.

Many years later, my grandmother developed dementia, and often experienced anguishing, graphic flashbacks from her days as a prisoner in both Halbstadt, where she was finally liberated in Czechoslovakia by the Soviets in 1945, and from arguably the most infamous death camp of all, Auschwitz. It was difficult to watch her deteriorate until she died in 2005, and even harder to find out, when I was truly ready, what her story really was.

To say that piecing together my family’s history is a challenge would be an understatement. I am no longer in contact with my father, nor his side of the family; my mother’s family is the only one that I really have; to whom I can truly belong. Now that I, myself, am a mother, I am beginning to understand and value what family means. But in order to pass down my legacy to my son, I have to know my roots and where I really come from.

My grandmother in the mid 1990s, during an interview with the Shoah Foundation.

My grandmother starts her story in the tape recording in 1939 Lodz, Poland, one of the first cities to fall under Nazi control within a matter of just a few days. Her father, Nathaniel Stern, a textile manufacturer, had sent her to a place called Glówno in the countryside, where he believed she would be safe, hoping that the war would soon be over. While living there, she went by the false name Sabrina Szpylka and successfully hid her Jewish identity. Having blond hair and piercing, blue eyes undoubtedly helped her in this endeavor.

As my grandmother goes on to name various towns and cities in Poland, I pause the recording every few minutes to check Google Maps to better visualize what exactly happened and where. Alas, between her heavy accent and the different possible spellings from Polish to English, in some cases, I can only make educated guesses.

Work permit issued to my great-grandmother, Dobrysz Sztern in the Lodz ghetto stating that she was a weaver.

In any case, eventually, there was no more correspondence, news, or letters coming in or out of the Lodz ghetto. Ultimately, my grandmother decided that, despite much discouragement and many pleas, she needed to be with her family. She took a train back to find that her former city surrounded by walls, barbed wire, and German soldiers. She approached the perimeter which was being guarded by a German, described in the recording as looking “pretty reasonable,” and boldly declared, “Ich bin jüdisch.”

“I am Jewish.”

Let that sink in for a moment.

His initial reaction was that incredulous silence, as he gave her a look of what I can only imagine was a combination of shock and disbelief. ““Ich bin jüdisch,” my grandmother told him again, “I want to go in.”

The German guard wasn’t quite sure what to do with her, nor was the gestapo whom she was later taken to. “She’s either a very clever person, or she is as stupid as she sounds,” concluded the gestapo…. “But he never found out either way,” notes my grandma, as the recording continues. I can almost visualize the slight smirk on her face.

In the end, she spent more than ten long days in a police station’s holding cell, and was then taken to a Jewish prison. Finally, after the gestapo had received orders all the way from Berlin, my grandmother was finally permitted to enter the ghetto to be reunited with her family and what she called, “her people.” This was not because they were really convinced that she was Jewish, but rather because they were really convinced that, if anything, she was “touched in her head.”

At this point, my grandmother declared herself, “the luckiest girl in the world,” after being able to spend another two years with her parents and siblings in the ghetto, before being sent with them to Auschwitz in 1944.

My great-grandparents, Dobrysz (Deborah) and Nathaniel Stern.

Ironically, “lucky” is a word that she uses quite a bit in her interview.

Upon their arrival, it was exactly what has been described in history books. Families separated forever, personal belongings confiscated, head shavings, and so on, but “luckily,” for the first couple of weeks, my grandmother, her two sisters, and their beloved mother, Deborah, somehow managed to remain together. Until my great grandmother was “chosen” from a line up and perished in a gas chamber.

“Please, don’t go with me. Your sisters will be better off if you stay with them, you know how to take care of them.”

The tape nears its end, but omits the vast majority of the unspeakable horrors of the concentration camps. Sadly, there are many questions that I will never know the answers to, too many to mention.

My grandmother and her remaining siblings that survived immigrated by ship (called the Marine Perch) that left Breman, Germany on June 17, 1946 and arrived in New York on June 24, 1946. Their nationality is listed as “stateless” according to the passenger list.

So ended a horrific chapter not only in her life, but in world history. But I know that it is still not over.

After listening to the remainder of the tape, my thoughts are racing, but I have no words, only an extremely heavy feeling in my heart.

“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” – Albert Einstein

When a wave of depression hits me, it’s positively crippling. I use the word crippling, rather than debilitating or disabling. After all, disabled people are still functional, have dignity, and overcome adversity to triumph. I am not just crippled, I am SEVERELY CRIPPLED beyond all sense and recognition when I am depressed. Crippled is a strong and ugly word with an equally strong and ugly connotation. Just like depression.

And yet…The show must go on.

I’m still a mother. I’m still a teacher. I’m still a wife. I still have to manage to function and be a member of the human race, despite how much it hurts.

What makes it harder to deal with is that I know that I have no good reason to feel the way I feel, which only perpetuates a total shame spiral. I have so many valid, important reasons to be happy, and just one that makes me unhappy: depression.

Not many people can tell how much I suffer internally, though I’d rather it be that way. That with each smile and everything say, no matter how minor it may seem, it taxes me. It’s all I can do to keep from collapsing in a giant, heavy heap. Sometimes, it’s a struggle just to breathe.

Stupid depression. Damn you. Damn you for sucking all the joy out of absolutely everything. How I wish I could just make you go away for good.

I look at the clock and wonder how on Earth I’m going to make it through the day. I do what I can; each hour I get through without caving into the depression demon feels like small victory… Until I realized that I have to repeat it twenty-three more times.

It feels like I’m continually running a marathon with a twisted ankle, day in and day out.

I somehow manage to stand upright and go through the motions, but despite all outward appearances, I am like the living dead on the inside at times like these.

In a few short weeks, I will have been living in Buenos Aires for seven consecutive years (not to mention the time that I spent here as an exchange student and as a tourist). I can say without any doubt that one of the hardest things that I’ve had to do while living here is say goodbye – Over and over and over again. Not to my loved ones during my occasional trips back to the U.S., mind you. The fact is, I find myself a minority of a minority in the sense that I am the only expat who I know of still living in Argentina who has been here for the duration that I have.

Whether I consider myself an expatriate, a foreigner, a permanent resident, an immigrant, or something in between still remains to be seen. Nevertheless, over time, I have begun shunning potential opportunities to socialize and become friends with most expats in this city, because there seems to be an expiration date on the people who come here from abroad. It’s one that feels like it’s getting cut shorter and shorter as Argentina’s political and economic situation grows more and more extreme and unpredictable.

The fact is, Buenos Aires is a very transient city. Moreover, the other fact is that very few foreigners from “first world” countries tend to hang here around too long.

Their initial reasons for coming here in the first place can vary, but their reasons for leaving seem to be quite similar. It’s the crime, the inflation, the ugliness of the city in all of it’s dog poo and graffiti-covered glory. In some cases, it can be the lack of economic opportunities (apart from teaching English), the difficulty in saving money, or the language.

Whatever their reason(s) may be, by this point, I feel like I have a pretty accurate idea if someone will be on that plane leaving from Ezeiza Airport within the next year or so. I am also quite good at sizing someone up if they will be successful as an expat, whether they remain here long-term or not. I feel like I want to get on a soapbox when I meet a newbie, and school them (or incidentally frighten them a bit) about what is in store for them and how to be a successful Buenos Aires expat.

In my moments of grandeur, I imagine that my schpeel might go something like this:

The first thing that you should know when it comes to being a successful Buenos Aires expat is that your country of origin really doesn’t bear too much importance. Despite the fact that this is a country built on immigrants and what they brought with them from the motherland, many Porteños who I have met are xenophobic to some extent. Are you from the United States? Peru? The U.K.? China? It doesn’t really seem to matter; they will find some fault with it. There are overgeneralizations (“Yanquis are war-loving gun nuts”) and unflattering stereotypes (“Perucas are here to take advantage of the public healthcare system and sell drugs”). There are ridiculous grudges (“The British piratas stole the Islas Malvinas from us and Chile supported them”), and some outright demonstrations of racism (as in pulling the corners of your eyes up into little slants). I honestly don’t see much advantage of one country over another as far as being an expat goes.

Patience is an absolute virtue here, which happens to be one of my weak points. I’ve damn near given myself an ulcer while trying to deal with “customer service.” Queuing here (for the bank, the colectivo, anything really) is a national pastime. There are days that are fine, and there are days when you go to three different ATMs in hopes of finding one that will actually dispense cash. Count to 10 (or possibly 100), take a deep, cleansing breath, and carry on.

As important as patience is, it’s also important to know where and when to draw the line, and not to tolerate crap. One example of when I wish I had put this notion into practice in the past, like when I was at an Argentine friend’s dinner party. Some of the real zingers that I got beaten over the head with were that almost no Americans can be bothered to learn a foreign language. Moreover, 9/11 was a conspiracy thought up by George W. Bush to promote his war for the oil we need to fuel our hummers and SUVs, which we obviously all drive. Obviously.

I am the first person to advocate for being your own ambassador when you are abroad. However, there is a limit. Know what yours are.

Furthermore, make a concerted effort to really learn the language. Not just español. Castellano bien porteño. That, and integrate and immerse yourself in daily life. It’s not always pretty, it’s certainly not easy, but why else would you go abroad if it’s not for the real experience? It honestly irks me when people never bother to leave Palermo and venues like the Sugar Bar or Casa Bar to venture out to the less well-known parts and barrios of Buenos Aires.

Would I have lasted as long as I have if I had known what was in store for me when I first arrived? I can emphatically say “Helllllllllll, no.” That’s also why I accredit a part of my longevity as a Buenos Aires expat to being naive to a certain extent. The process of securing an apartment rental without U.S. dollars and without a garantia can mind-numbingly difficult if you just arrived here. Somehow, I did it. Getting a job en blanco is also complicated as a foreigner. I paid my dues over the years, but I was able to do that, too.

The final piece of advice that I might give to an expat hopeful? Don’t necessarily listen to jaded (though well-meaning) cynics like me. There’s no one right way to expat. Find your niche, find what makes you happy here, and regardless of how long you ultimately stay, hopefully you’ll also find an Argentine part of yourself that you didn’t even know existed. Suerte.

As you all know by now, I am extremely proud of my two and a half year old son, Sebastian. He means so much to me that there is nothing that I can say to even come close to describing how much I love him. The pure joy he shows over the littlest things (like blowing bubbles) is my happiness. When he cries, I want to cry. When he laughs in his contagious, mischievous little giggle, I swear, it’s what I imagine an angel must sound like.

As his mother, I only want the best for him. If it were only possible, I would give him the world. But alas, there are some things that are beyond my control.

People have commented how sweet my child is, and I kvell. That he is cute as all hell, with his deep, serious-looking coffee colored eyes which are a contrast from his disarming, silly smile. That he seems alert, intelligent, that he has incredible gross and fine motor skills (hence his love of stacking and building towers out of anything he can get his hands on). But there is one major elephant in the room. A looming doubt that makes me question me and my parenting:

Why isn’t my son talking?

Yes, I’ve heard time and again (and again!) that boys tend to take longer than girls do when it comes to linguistic abilities. And that growing up in a bilingual environment is also a potential cause for further delay.

My pride and joy, the love of my life, my little boy!

It has already been observed by different professionals, including a neurologist, that he is NOT autistic, that he is not mentally retarded. Nor is he hearing impaired. Ok, that’s fine. But still…

…why isn’t my son talking?

I replay scenes in my brain, scouring it for an answer, for a possible connection of what I may have done at some point during my undeniably stressful pregnancy or during his early infancy as to a clue of when I may have misstepped, and screwed up my child. The fact is, that as much as I love my son, I have NOT been the perfect parent (far from it).

According to the educational psychologist who worked with my son for a few sessions and her final written report, though he is supposedly not autistic, he does, in fact have some autistic-like tendencies. He does not respond to his name, and doesn’t understand and follow simple directions. He has yet to utter his first word when, by this point, he should be using three-word sentences. And the whole bilingual thing? By this point, I wouldn’t care if he started speaking in Mandarin, I just want to hear him talk!

He still doesn’t interact with others while playing (but from what I understand, isn’t the inclination toward parallel play still common at this age?). He has trouble verbally communicating and communicating in general, which is frustrating for both him and us.

It was recommended in the evaluation that he work with a speech therapist to get to the bottom of this. Though he is still very young, effective intervention as early as possible is key, but it still took my husband a considerable amount of time to finally find a speech therapist who works with kids Seba’s age, and who could fit us in. We got in, we had one session, and the therapist promptly suffered a stroke one week later.

Back to square one.

Why isn’t my son talking?

Being a firm believer that knowledge is power, I have been reading up on causes for speech delay in young children (and incidentally making myself sick with worry in the process). Everything from aplexia to something on the autism spectrum to Einstein syndrome are potential causes. Though I look for anything that might give me a hint, some insight into what is going on, I fully acknowledge that, despite the hours spent researching on my own, I am not medically qualified in any way and cannot rely on a checklist to diagnose my precious child.

So what’s a concerned mother to do?

I have to admit, a part of me is so anxious for him to speak for somewhat selfish reasons. It’s hard when my husband or I witness kids his age string together sentences, play word games with their parents, and sing silly songs. And I cannot even begin to explain how much I long for him just to call me “Mommy,” or to say “I love you.” My heart would positively burst. I have to be honest here, there are times I simply feel cheated.

The other day, the three of us went out for ice cream. While Fede has Seba in his arms, and I was paying at the register. There was a woman behind us who snapped at her little girl, because the girl was prattling on and on and on non-stop. “Basta!” she finally screeched at her daughter, grabbing her shoulder.

Though she may not have realized it, I secretly wanted to shake her, but all I could manage to do was sigh and roll my eyes. If only she knew.

All I want is for my son is what every loving parent wants for their child- to be happy, healthy, and to ultimately have a fulfilling, independent life. I don’t want him to fall behind, I don’t want him to be teased or judged or bullied. My heart breaks sometimes over this.

Then again, my son is a beautiful child and overall a very happy little boy. Perhaps *I* am the one with the greater problem.